” …it allows us to dream about the absolute inaccessible beauty and eternally young romance.”

Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week ended last Thursday, and as always, it brought a incredible display of culture, creativity, and glamor.

If you’re thinking that a fashion week in the middle of summer seems oddly-timed, then you’re right. Sort-of. Here’s how it works: There are four main “Fashion Weeks” every year, and each “week” occurs twice a year – once for Spring/Summer collections, and once for Fall/Winter Collections. The four Fashion Weeks occur each season beginning in New York and then moving on to London, Milan, and Paris.

In addition to these top four, there are also the inter-seasonal fashion weeks of Resort/Cruise (before Spring/Summer) and Pre-Fall (before Autumn/Winter). Finally, there are speciality weeks like Miami Fashion Week, Rio Summer,Prêt-a-Porter, Couture, and Bridal.

Couture Week is typically in Paris, and it is currently held in the Carrousel du Louvre. The term “haute couture” is actually a protected word in modern France, and only designers meeting certain criteria are allowed to define their label their house as “couture” and display their designs at this prestigous fashion week.

Check out some of the beautiful artwork from this season’s runways.

Guest member Iris Van Herpen, a former intern of Alexander McQueen, was a first-time invitee whose designs really wowed the crowd.

Christophe Josse paired metallics and flowing fabrics for unique warrior-meets-princess looks. Check out the red feathers on that wedding dress!

And let’s not forget to give props to the models from Maison Rabih Kayrouz, who walked barefoot down a water-coated runway in beautiful pastels.

Check out some of the other stunning looks from the runway:

Christian Dior

Elie Saab

Jean Paul Gaultier

Chanel

See the rest of the looks from the Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week here!

For this weeks Blogger Spotlight, I could think of no better than the beautiful Miss James of Bleubird Vintage! James has the sweetest family and the most adorable pictures you could imagine. Literally, everytime I check out her blog my heart melts a little more for the sweet faces of her three adorable little ones. This mama knows a thing or two about fashion and she keeps her precious babies and her home styled with some of the best vintage you’ll see on the web. Check out some of my favorite shots below!

Rocking a precious vintage dress from LuLu*s, James and her baby bird, Gemma, are having fun on a trip to my hometown of San Francisco! I was lucky enough to see James on this trip when she hung out with us for the Swap!

Say good-bye to over-plucking forever with this latest beauty how-to! Beautifully shaped eyebrows create a frame for the face, making them an essential part of our beauty maintenance. Eyebrows help create your unique look and, just like personalities, everyone’s are different. There are absolutely no eyebrows that are identical, this includes your own! It is extremely difficult to get both of your eyebrows looking around the same shape, so I created this how-to to help you out.

1.Work with what you have. You can remove hair or use an eyebrow pencil to make them look fuller, but you can’t instantly grow them.

2. Know where your eyebrows should start. Draw an invisible line from the outer sides of your nostril to your brows (1). This is where your brows should begin to help you start shaping your eyebrows the right way.

3. Determine where your arch should begin. Take the eye pencil and start at the end of your nose and line it up to the point above your iris (2). It is to your discretion as to how tall you would like your arch. Don’t go too high, you don’t want to always look surprised.

4. Find where your tail should end. Start at your nose again and line up the end of your eye (3). Everyone’s eyes differ in size and this is one of the many reasons why no two people have the same shaped brows.

5. Trim if needed. This is a great way to get rid of bushy eyebrows without tweezing. Brush your eyebrows straight up and trim whatever hairs are coming out of your natural shape. If there are any uneven spaces, then just fill in with an eyebrow pencil until more hair grows.

Here is a video tutorial from Howdini to give you a visual of what I described above:

Important note: One bad pluck and the hair is gone forever. Be careful!!

Gone are the days when my mom would sit me down with a pair of fiskars and a strip of scotch tape and go to town on my bangs. Now, I’m super picky about my bangs, and since I left my fabulous hair girl in San Diego, I’ve been scared to even try to find another person to fix my fringe. With all of my anxiety about bang trims, I figured, who better to trust (or blame) than myself!

I scoured the web for tutorials, keeping my pickiness in mind, and was thrilled to find makeup artist extraordinaire/YouTube sensation, Kandee Johnson. She’s amazing. You might recognize her from our How To: Fix a Broken Compact blog, but who knew she does hair to perfection too! I dream about bangs as perfectly side-swept as Kandee’s, and thank goodness, she’s here to show us exactly how she does it!

I’ve included two tutorials, one with shears and the other with a razor, so pick your hardware, dry those locks, grab a comb and flat iron, and get snippin’!

Shears

Razor & Shears

I especially love her tip about leaving them longer on one side so you can switch up the side of your part for two totally different looks. I adore her style and personality, and now she has me perfectly prepped and ready to lose the bobby pins and headbands, and bring my bangs back to life!

Prada released their newest ad campaign for Fall/Winter 2011/12 last week. While you may be sweltering in the summer heat, you can look forward to pops of bright color, plenty of animal prints and a futuristic Mod influence for the coming seasons.

Photographed by Steven Meisel, we see the blush pink trend of spring combined with citrus and python for an absolutely sublime pairing . . . and knee-high making a comeback? Who knew?!